Don't leave me high...

...don't leave me dry.

I was quite a fan of the maudlin lyrics of Radiohead in my early twenties and so it takes very little for me to start droning away at some of their more popular numbers in a manner that sets off dogs howling across neighboring counties. And what brought about this trip down memory lane you might ask? To which I would reply that my recent session of caterwauling was prompted by me arriving at my intended venue to literally see that I had been left high and dry.

After the savage summer we have just had and in this Indian summer we are currently experiencing it never even occurred to me that this neglected old lake may have suffered, but suffered it had. After walking over to what should have been the edge I stepped down onto the lake bottom and walked some fifty feet out into it. Barely any water remained bar the single deep area around the centre of the once lake and now pond. I would have just left were it not for the pike sending hordes of roach scattering in the pond; seeing they were feeding I thought at least one cast might be worth it.

 One cast was made and one pike was caught but for as happy as it made me the realization that I might be causing damage to this fish or other by fishing made me rethink my actions. After a quick snap I spent a good ten minutes retaining that fish in the net assuring it safely returned.

With my only free morning of the week ticking away I quick change of venue was in order and luckily I had a few different lures stashed in my car boot which I felt would enable me to drop onto the river and fish effectively. So after a slight diversion through the lanes of Warwickshire I was soon trudging alone along the deserted banks of the Avon once again. Once in an area I knew was quite reliable for a predator here and there I began launching a ten gram jig head and Fox curly tail shad tight to the far bank cover; it didn't take long to get a hard thump transmitted back along the taut braided mainline, indicating something fancied my lure and it was now in its mouth. It turned out to be my second pike of the morning and what a stunning little monster it was.

The prey fish that seem to have been constantly present in the upper layers of the water on this stretch were noticeably absent as were the predators for the rest of the way back up the stretch. Persistence paid off and what seemed like hundreds of casts later as my lure worked its way out of the dark depths of the river, another unseen predator struck hard. This time after a very dirty fight, where the culprit dived into some marginal weed growth which was subsequently severed off by my line, I slipped my net under another lovely example of an Avon zander from one of the areas I will be definitely targeting over the winter.

Well, what can I say? After my initial plan was left high and dry having a few different types of lure to hand really paid off, enabling me to change venue and turn what could have been a real disappointment into a decent session that has further confirmed where I should be fishing in the coming season.

Catch up part 4 - A 16th weekend

A few years ago I had the insanely genius idea to avoid the rivers on the opening day of the season. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made as I ended up practically having Napton to myself and having a red letter day to boot. Ever since that day I have continued this avoidance of the hordes of anglers desperate for river glory and destined for trickling disappointment; instead I have bagged up on loads of cracking fish by slowly sauntering down to a lake whilst everyone else is succumbing to bleary eyed boredom of the river.

Unusually this 16th turned out to be a rather cloudy and chilly occasion round these parts. Normally it is bright sunshine wall to wall to get those barbel and chub scurrying for cover. I actually had to get my old hoody from the car boot to keep warm on the breezy Napton banks as I angled after another vintage crucian. The one great thing about this overcast and cutting breeze was that if I got into a decent and fish-able position the fish should feed for as long as I could keep them in the swim.

After pitching up in a swim with the wind on my back I deployed the weed rake to confirm the swim was clear enough to fish and went about setting up stall to keep under the wind and fish tight to a nearby reed bed. The rake always clouds up the swim nicely and in the clear waters of Napton this is like ringing the dinner bell. The roach were first on the scene and after a few annoying plucks I finally got a decent bite which resulted in me hooking the first of several nice roach between ten ounces and a pound.

I knew if the roach were that quick to arrive that the tench would soon arrive and when they did things really went off. The first fish got off but after quickly re-baited and getting back on the spot I was straight away into another tench which couldn't resist my sweetcorn hook bait sitting temptingly amongst the scattering of pellets and dusting of pungent ground bait. This fish gave me a right run around and quickly informed me of all the weed beds in proximity of the swim. Being careful and gently pulling it out of all of these weed beds soon saw me netting a stunning first tench of the day.

The tench kept coming all afternoon with the crazy smaller males charging here, there and everywhere and the much bigger and powerful females really pushing my gear to the limits as I tried to weave them in and out of the maze of weed beds along my bank. Most of them ended up in my net but a few managed to dive so deep in the weeds that all my tugging only served to pull the hook and leave the embedded tench to find their own way out.

As per normal it turned out to be another of those sessions where I probably didn't get within half a lake of the precious old crucian and thus it was filed away with the hundreds of other sessions just like it. I did end the session on a high by landing a large stunning female tench that was a decent step up in size from most of the fish I had caught so far this year. Her capture adds credence to my theory that the tench in Napton, though reduced in numbers, are becoming bigger.

Sooner or later I had to get down the river and after a reccy lure session along the Barford AA stretch of the Avon with a lure rod, I concluded that although low and clear there did seem to be fish holding in the faster oxygenated water. So the night after the day before I returned armed with a barbel rod and a bucket full of fishy bait to hopefully garner myself a bite or two. With the conditions being sunny and the river very clear I guessed things were going to be hard and that any decent fish would more than likely being hanging out in any cover they could find. This in mind I pitched up in a swim with plenty of beds of streaming weed thinking this was my best chance of teasing out a few fish in such dire conditions.

After watching for a while through polarized eyes I started to see the occasional dark shape drift from one weed bed to another. With as little disturbance as possible I dropped my rig along with a golf ball sized PVA bag of freebies in between two weed beds where I thought I stood a chance of extracting a hooked fish. I was kind of thinking I would have to wait for a bite and I went about busying myself making a few more PVA bags of pellets. I'd barely got half way through the second one when the rod which was trapped between my legs pulled hard over and the butt was pivoted up in my nether regions. In the panic the bucket of pellets went flying, my tube of PVA stocking fell precariously close to the river and a small yet pungent pot of bait glug was spilled on my lap as I tried to get the rod butt out of my groin.

From the savagery of the initial bite I was under the impression I had by sheer luck hooked a early season barbel, but it turned out to be a chub who did an amazing impression of a barbel. It turned out to be quite a nice chub in reality...

My luck however was seemingly spent on that first chub as for a lot of interest from the first fishes shoal mates I suspect, I received no more savage bites on this first river outing. Though for the records purposes I will mark this single fish session as a total success as there's been plenty of early session sessions when I have had the dreaded blank. Thinking back now the capture of that single chub, after spotting several drifting around deep in the cover on a sunny day when not a lot was doing, seem aptly pure to me.

.

It's not only gold that glitters.

I've spent a large part of my life dreaming. I spent the majority of my school days dreaming of what I would do when I was not at school much to the chagrin of my teachers. I've spent a million hours lost in my head dreaming of fishing whilst working at some repetitive task at work and I often fall asleep thinking about what I would like to catch next in the hope I will dream of it. Most of the winter I've dreamt of lovely golden crucian carp or perfectly green red-eyed tench on summer nights, but just recently big silver roach have swum through my mind. I think it's because I made a mental note to have a go for them at Napton whilst it was still chilly enough to single them out, but warm enough to actually fish on the openness of this reservoir.

It turned out that the day I earmarked to fish up at Napton for these lovely roach was one of those times when I should have stopped at home for at least eighty percent of the session. Four hours I spent huddled under my umbrella about as far as a man of my stature can and the whole time the rain flip flopped from drizzle to piddle, teasing me that it might stop and the day might become the session I hoped for. The whole time I hunkered deep under that umbrella I waged war on the pint of maggots, which coaxed on by their new found climbing ability, were hell bent on escaping into the damp grass. Somewhere though, towards the end of the day a lighter shade of grey covered the horizon and soon turned to a pale blue, followed by a burning red as the sun finally broke through to dry me off.

All afternoon the total action added up to three slow slides of the float that I suspected were small perch but was suspicious were crayfish, even so though I had religiously fed maggot every so often over the light sprinkling of ground-bait I'd laid down at the start of the session. The last hour made all the waiting in the damp worthwhile. It was like a switch had been flicked and the entire lake population had sprung into life to feed with gay abandon. The perch were first in the queue and at between six ounces and a pound plus they very welcome.

Somewhere in a slew of sliding perch bites my float did a different dance. I'd been using what I call the micro lift rig which I have done so well with at this venue in the past. As I've said before the key to this rig a combination of the Drennan antenna float and the single number nine shot positioned close to the bottom which cocks the float down so as only the red tip shows. The advantage of using this rig is you see bites two ways, both up and down. The float first rose a little before stuttering under the waters film and my strike was met by a dogged fight very different from the perch I had been catching. My target had turned up by way of a very young looking roach well over a pound.

If all the fishing I did was like the last hour of this session I would soon grow ungrateful of such wonderful sport quickly. Bite after bite came constantly. I even gave up casting and sinking the line as the float was never still long enough to be pulled out of position by the floating line. It was only a numbers game before another roach came along, the only worry was would it come along before the light went and my float disappeared permanently. It got to the stage when you can't even see the black shape of the float against the reflection of the sky on the water and your eyes play tricks on you because even blinking makes you lose sight of your float in the dark. How I registered that final bite I'll probably never know, but I did and again the nodding fight of a roach excited me enough to take more care playing it. Unable to definitively identify the fish I waited till I could make it out laying calmly on the surface before gently scooping it up in the net. The blinding white light of my head lamp illuminated a second perfect bar of silver was the final fish that I had been hanging on right till the death for.

The window on targeting these lovely fish has passed quickly with the long overdue temperature rise and now the time for spring and summer species is on the horizon. Likely though I few accidental captures will come over the summer along with their ginger cousins the rudd, which will be more than welcome gifts in the future.

Return to the river.

It seems like forever since I've paid the Avon any attention. I have had an odd look here and there since the season opened up, but frankly I've been a bit preoccupied with trying to catch a crucian out of Napton Reservoir. Anyway whilst away on holiday the idea to get my arse in gear and head back to the river really came to the forefront of my mind. It just happened that a bit of rain the few days before I got back had the river in tip top conditions for my return.

I have a new membership for a bit of the Avon which some of my angling buddies have been recommending for years, which this year I decided to get on. So with a couple of rods set up ready to go I decided to head down the A46 for a morning session. Normally I would have tried to be on the bank for first light, but my early morning bumbling roused BB and he discovered some presents which had been stashed in his room that were to big too transport on holiday, so my leaving was delayed a little whilst they were opened.

In the end I found myself pulling up in the car park around 9am and shockingly there was only two other cars evident. Where was everyone? I asked myself, as I had suspected everyone would be on the river given the conditions. The first angler I came across was on the first peg through the gate and a quick chat turned up that he'd already had three chub and two barbel from out in the faster water. This was good news and got me quickly heading off looking for a swim up river. I soon found a great looking swim where the fast water is deflected by a big bed of reeds and with the extra colour on the water it looked great for the barbel I so much wanted.  

Trying to be as careful as I could I gently cast into the crease with a PVA bag full of goodies attached to my rig. Although I did receive several taps of interest I was soon recasting again and again, working my way down the crease in subsequent casts towards some cover where I suspected the barbel might be lying in wait. After a few hours I was getting concerned I may have missed or messed up my shot at a barbel from this swim, but rather than just move off I opted to make one final cast a bit further out, away from the crease I'd been targeting into the faster water.

I'd been sitting on the cast for a good fifteen minutes before another angler from upstream dropped by to see how I was doing. We'd been whacking on for ten minutes as I kept an eye on the white rod tip out the corner of my eye. I clocked a slow nod of the tip which grabbed my attention then a quick sharp pull got my hand hovering over the rod and then bang, as predicted, the rod bent over as the fish tuned onto the weight of the lead.

In the fast shallow water I lent hard on the fish to stop it finding any of the weed beds which I knew lay hidden by the coloured water.  A long pause with both of us refusing to give an inch ended when the fish was pushed down stream by the flow... then all hell broke loose in the deeper clearer water under my own bank. This powerful fish worked me hard to keep it from getting back over the river into the fast water but everything held true and the soft action of my rod soon subdued the fish and a gaping mouth lined with barbules appeared on the surface before what looked a big fish slipped into the net.

After letting the fish recover in the water I lifted the net out and put it onto he mat. I lifted back the folds of the net to reveal a perfect long lean summer fish. I can truly say I was beaming with the sight of this perfect first barbel off of a new stretch of river, and my companion who had stood silent the whole fight seemed very impressed too. We both agreed it looked to be a good one though on the scales my suspicion that it was in lean condition proved true and even given its long length the fish was only 7.14lb. 

Maybe in the winter this fish could have been at least nine pounds or more. The weight though hardly mattered at all to me as I was over the moon that I should catch such an amazing fish for my first barbel off a new stretch of river.

The rain came in quickly after that and I opted to make a tactical retreat, but I was back a few days later to fish another swim aways downstream. This time the river had cleared and with that in mind I had brought a second lighter rod along to fish the maggot feeder upstream of the barbel rod, with the hope that the maggots going downstream, combined with the activity from other fish might draw up any wary barbel to have a look see what was going on. The plan actually worked, but not quite exactly as I wanted it to. The maggot line was alive with fish chasing the freebies as I dropped the feeder again and again onto the same spot at the head of the swim. Roach, dace, gudgeon and perch were queuing up waiting for the feeder to release more free maggots into the flow.

As the session went on the interest in my downstream rod increased slowly but surely. It took a while but random jags on the rod tip indicated something was afoot. Soon enough the rod bent over hard as something took the bait. After those initial moments when you lean into a fish feeling something powerful abated, the fish power dwindled and I realised the chub had turned up, attracted by all the activity. The first fish was a greedy two pounder but the second was a much longer fish just under four pounds, which like that first barbel would be much larger come winter.

The bug had really bit and another evening session was penned into my diary for a week or so later, after seeing that the long range forecast predicted another deluge of rain to bring the river into peak condition.

I arrived as quick as I could get there after work to find only one car in the car park, and after rushing over the fields to the river I scouted the whole section, baiting up a few spots as I went. The other angler was nowhere near where I wanted to fish and after a quick chat and finding out that although he was really after the silvers he had been skinned out a couple of time by big fish. This was perfect, no other anglers and feeding fish, how could I fail..?

The scene of my first barbel capture seemed the logical starting point and I was soon set-up and watching the river, trying to figure out the water in front of me as the added water and flow had seemingly changed the whole dynamic of the swim. It didn't take long to figure I'd chosen the most complicated swim to start with. There must have been seven or more areas in front of me screaming for a bait to go on them. In the end I began close in targeting a small crease right under my own bank. This produced nothing at all so I went about casting into each area I thought might hold barbel one after another for the next three hours. In the end I spent far too much time trying to logically cover the whole swim, in which time Mick had turned up and headed off upstream to fish for predators.

Having kind of shot myself in the foot time-wise, I decided to move downstream to fish one of the swims I had pre baited. With only enough time to fish one last swim I missed out a couple I had dropped bait into and went for the one I thought most likely to produce in the conditions. It was quite a simple swim I went to, with a large bed of bulrushes at the head that was creating a crease right down the centre of the river between the fast and slow water.

My first cast sent a tasty bag of morsels quickly down to the river bed just in the fast water, attached to a two ounce lead. The reaction was instant as my pre baiting already had fish nosing around on the gravel. Convinced the rod was going to bang over I had to sit on my hands as the small fish attacked the hook bait. I waited patiently and as I did, the rod soon indicated the presence of a bigger fish. A couple of nods later and the rod was nearly ripped of the rest and I was into a barbel. The initial savagery subsided and an interesting battle ensued in the slow water. It was only about four pound but this solid and fresh barbel took no prisoners as it dived into every possible place it could get snagged. In the end though the fact I was fishing gear capable of landing even the biggest fish won the fight and I netted an immaculate barbel that saved my session. 

The next cast produced the same response but this time I thought I'd hooked a small chub or something until I went to lift it out and a tiny sub pound barbel managed to shake itself off the hook, vibrating mid-lift, and dived straight back into the river. They were only small but two barbel in two casts were good numbers for me. I really wanted to get my bait right onto the bait I had put down earlier so I tried my very best to land the rig and new bag of freebies on the very centre of the crease. In doing so though I tightened up and it was more than obvious my bait was on the inside of the crease in the slow water. I decided to give it a chance and wait, letting it sit there for fifteen minutes at least, but I didn't feel in was the best place for it at all. 

The bite came out of nowhere with no warning which made it all that more shocking. One moment the rod was stationary the next it was bending double, lifting the butt out of the rests. Straight away I could feel this was a fish in another league. It powered all over the swim through both the fast and slow water with me just holding on tight and trying my best to steer it away from any hazards. After covering every bit of water in front of me, the fish dived straight into some lillies in the slow water, but its power and my power linked by the line just cut straight though the stems leaving the pad floating away downstream. A few dives later and I had what I knew was a good barbel in the net. As it rested in the water I made the call to Mick to ask for a spot of help taking a photo or two which turned out to be a brilliant decision as my camera phone, although great in day light, was useless in the half light. Luckily Mick brought his camera and I was soon proudly holding up my first double from this new stretch and beaming from behind all ten pounds and seven ounces of it.

In three close sessions this new bit of river has proved exactly how honest it is. By that I mean; it looks like it should contain barbel and chub and it does, it looks healthy and it seems it is and in the right conditions the fish should feed and they do. Which for the Warwickshire Avon, isn't that common from what I've seen in the past. A lot of the time I fished sections of the Avon and thought, this has to be a good area for this or that, and been let down. This place though seems different and I hope my theories about other different sections come to fruition over the autumn and winter. If they do, well, a few more red letter days for other species could be on the horizon.

A perfect moment of good froggy fun.

My nose wrinkled up as I paused on the old bridge at the head of the lake and my inner monologue became an outer one even though no one was in the car to hear it. "Ah shit!"

It is literally amazing the carnage a flock of Canadian geese can cause. The flock of thirty or more which were currently ripping up the lawn beside the little forgotten lake had churned what should have been a clear shallow estate lake into something that resembled a run of the mill commercial pond, with their mindless munching. Still though I would persist as it was a warm late summer afternoon, I practically had the whole pool to myself and the thought of a hot blooded jack pike chasing down my lure was all I could think of.

I'd already walked from under the drooping ancient willow near the bridge all along the lawn and crossed the stagnant feeder stream at the head of the lake. For all my nosing and staring all I had seen was a shoal of ten small roach lipping tit bits that had collected along the dying lily pads at the mouth of the stream. Now I was walking slowly along in the darkness on the old path under the trees behind the island. Two months ago you couldn't even see the water for all lily pads that had sprouted in the shallow water. Now though autumn was only days away and the once tough round green leaves that hid the lake had lost their buoyancy and rotted, half sunk in the turbid water. 

Bar two perplexed looking ducks and a panicky Moorhen, the water behind the island seemed devoid of life until I passed behind a hawthorn tree which sprouted from the edge of the path. Stopping just in the realm of cover I peeped round into the weed. This was perfect two Jack pike floated still as stone, head to tail in a clearing in the half dead pads.

If one pike floating in the weeds was a prospect, I was sure this was a cert. Before I moved back behind the tree my mind ran an inventory of the lures in my back pack. Third box down...top row...in the forth section from the left. That was it, the only thing I had which I could pull through even dying weed without getting snarled up. Sure enough the amphibian equivalent of the eighty's sex doll, the weed free frog lure lay hidden under a small tangled mess of plugs in the exact section I predicted. Not wanting to lose this opportunity I dived straight in grabbing the whole section load of lures as gently as I could and feeling several sharp pricks of trebles as I did. Moments of violent shaking soon loosened the lures and the single frog fell onto the floor. As fake as it was I knew that this was all I had that stood a chance of attracting those torpid pike out of their trance.

Trying not to rush, I threaded the frog onto the clip and set the clever wire weed guard into place. Leaving my bag leaning against the tree, I pushed my net across the floor towards the edge of the lake, without  stepping out from behind the tree I leaned out with the rod. I knew casting such a light lure from high up the bank was a risk, but I also knew any movements could send the pike darting away in an instant.

With a determined flick the less than aerodynamic frog arched through the air, landing a good ten feet past the little pikes. Gently I tightened up on the line lifting it off the surface and began steering the frog on course towards the gap in the weed. Using some gentle lifts of the rod I, in my clumsy way, tried to imitate the movement of a frog as best I could. Three inches at I a time I dragged the frog closer and closer until eventually it rested on a pad at the edge of the clearing.

This was it I took a deep breath and pulled the lure into the kill zone. At first it was all real time slow motion as the smaller of the two fish just tipped forward and sank like a submarine out of sight. For a moment I thought it had all gone bad but then I tugged the frog again and the second jack turned slowly towards it. I pulled again, sure it would strike, but the fish paused as the frog stopped. So I pulled again and the water erupted as the pike attacked.

I'd hardly had chance to strike before my yellow line cut across the shallow water cutting through every lily pad as the pike ran away and I tightened down on it. The fight was never going to be a glorious one and even after we laid waste to a large ecosystem and the pike was in the net, I knew the most satisfying part of this capture was by far the strike.

The lake #25 Oh how I hath waited

I've felt rather in limbo for a month or more prior to the bell tolling on a new fishing season as I suppose many of us do. It's not that I haven't fished either as I have been enjoying fishing a rediscovered water and doing quite well conditions considered. Though what I have been doing in some ways could be described as filling time, and in all honesty as I have fished one water I have been betraying it by thinking of another as I did.

The lake has weighed heavy on my mind for the longest time you see. Not many hours have passed since winter faded away that I haven't thought of it. In quiet times when my mind has been set free by some arduous and repetitive task I have allowed my self to slip full-on into dreams of it. The odd thing is although I am motivated by the fish it holds, it is more the lake itself which draws me in. Even thought I have walked its banks since I was a child, it is these last few years that I felt myself becoming more entwined with it.

I suppose its this magnetic attraction that seems to have developed, combined with my insatiable need to get to know it all over again this year, that inspired my plan for the start of this season. It must have been March when I conceived to spend the opening day there. Then with that decided I concluded, why not go the day before and spend the night, which naturally morphed into a couple of days and nights. And that was it, my season was to open with fifty or more hours in the company of Coombe pool.

Even with plenty of planning and forward thought I really had little idea of where I might fish, and after last years debacle of there only being one free peg on the grassy sea of the Lindley bank, that wasn't probably a bad thing. The day had finally arrived and after a whistle stop father's day morning run I loaded up with a few days worth of provisions, shelters, sleeping bags and the all important fishing tackle then made the short journey which I knew I would be making many more times these coming months.

As always that first look over the grassy slope that leads down to the secluded bank was mouth watering. Unusually though there seemed to be a general lack of anglers frequenting the reed lined pegs. Being as the first day of the season this year fell on a Monday rather than a Sunday, the mob that descended last year had obviously not turned up or possibly the general low capture ratio had maybe deterred those naive enough to think this is a runs water.

Having already had a bit of a wander round a few nights before I was well aware that the previous weeks rain had coloured up the main lake somewhat, and that the mild winter just passed had not been bad enough to curtail the weed, which is rampant in some areas of the lake. The little amount of info I already possessed was pointing me towards a bend in the private bank where the coloured water of the main lake and the clearer water meet, and also where the weed thins.

I settled for a familiar spot that has in the past been the sight of a few big hits for me. The great thing about this area is that it by just walking a couple of pegs either side you get a full view of the lake and as this session was as much about finding out what was going on as it was fishing, this spot seemed the perfect place to set camp.

It's quite odd really getting all set up, pitching camp and then having to sit behind rods that are ready to do what they are made for and having to wait seven hours to cast out. This time however did give me ample opportunity to cast a light lead around and garner a better picture of the underwater landscape in front of me. Bar a few random tufts of weed there was only one serious weed bed in the sea of silt in front of me

After pinpointing a spot I liked better than all the very other similar areas and drinking several cups of tea with my nearest neighbour, I made my move to bait up. I had been out the corner of my eye watching and waiting for the resident wildfowl population to do one. With the last of the sneaky tufted ducks forced away with a few trial casts of my mini spomb I went about spreading a few kilos of pellet, crushed boilies, hemp and chopped boilies around a reasonable sized area. I really wanted to imitate random balls of ground bait so instead of just filling up the spomb with loose bait and creating a carpet. So I squeezed each load into a ball before putting inside the little white rocket.

Then it became a case of waiting and waiting. With no baited lines in the water I was free to mooch around as I liked and in several swims I watched patches of wonderful tench fizz rise to the top. In another swim a shoal of roach the size of a tennis court moved back and forth on the surface changing direction every time a jack pike struck from beneath. In my own swim I watched as a couple of bream rolled off my bait just as the sun dipped behind the trees. It was the thought of those rolling fish that I had running through my mind as I curled up in my sleeping bag and watched the sky go from blue to purple through the door of my shelter.

Even though I wasn't expecting a lot it was only too easy to conjure the vision of a shoal of hump backed slabs cruising over my bait maybe with an odd tubby tench mixed in for good measure. Luckily for me the exertion of shoving my laden barrow over some of the roughest banks in the county helped me slip off for a few hours sleep before my alarm would wake me again ten minutes prior to midnight.

You would have thought with such a build up, all the weeks of planning and the general excitement that I would have been of of bed like a shot. Well that wasn't exactly the case! It was real struggle to get back up from my slumber in truth. Stumbling round in the dark with a savage case of morning mouth in the middle of the night I was glad I'd made the effort to get everything ready before settling down for a kip. My rods were clipped up so all I had to do was extract the hook links which had my baits attached from the glug, attach them to the quick clips and bait the method feeders. The memory of the cast were pretty much hard wired after making it so many times the day before. Both rods went out like a dream dead in line with my far bank markers and hitting the line clips just right. Not seconds after the last rod was in the rest and the buzzer switched on the kettle that I had set boiling prior to casting out began whistling. In the dark I sat watching the the lake through the dark sipping a brew on my bed. I knew nothing would occur straight off the bat but it seemed more than right to at least watch for a little while before retiring to bed. I fell asleep twice sitting up, tea in hand, so with the last of the tepid cuppa gone and the tawny owls hooting I turned on the my receiver and went back to sleep for a while.

It was an massive forty minutes before the red LED close to my head lit up and the stuttering bleep woke me. By the time I had slipped on my shoes something was slowly but surely taking line from the spool. My first fish of the 2014 season crossed the cord of my net at approximately twelve fifty and it looked just as shocked as I did by all accounts.

After the initial fish my night became a rather up and down affair and by that I mean every time I got a liner the receiver would sound and I would sit up in bed and wait for a few minutes waiting for a fish toddle off, which it didn't, and then I'd lie back down a fall asleep immediately. Out of the stack of liners I had between one and four in the morning I was agog that I only landed one other bream.

If I described the night as perplexing than the day I could refer to as barren. Once the sun hit the sky the liners stopped and all activity ceased. The only thing moving anywhere on the lake was the huge shoal of roach which had divided up into several smaller shoal which now danced around all over the surface with predators in tow.

 Knowing there would be no action through the day it was nice to have some company by way of  a couple of carp anglers new to the lake. The day passed easily chatting out the pool and other waters as we supped copious amount of tea. It was on my way between my peg and the powwow that I encountered a small squirrel. I saw it shuffling around in the grass at first and then thought nothing of it. As I passed a second time I found it sitting eating what looked like field mushroom. Even with me standing gawking at it the obvious youngster didn't seem bothered by my presence. In fact I was able to go right up to within a few feet of it. Whether it was just a confident little fellow or whether it wasn't a mushroom but rather a toadstool with psychotropic effects, the little squiggy just stayed put and carried on munching his fungi. It was around all day searching out more fungi and soon enough we started calling him Jimi Hendrix because he really did seem to be in a bit of a purple haze.

Jimi Hendrix

Night two made night one look amazing and to be frank I got the distinct impression that even though I had waited till the quietest part of the day to top up my swim with a second barrage of bait, nothing seemed in residence at all. I woke in the early and still dark hours and recast just to make sure every thing was ok with my rigs. Then after that repeatedly recast every time I woke up. By breakfast time I was done with the swim! I knew if I carried on all flipping week long topping up the swim sooner or later a big hit of action would materialize, but two days in one spot was already to much for me.

I pondered what to do with my last ten hours on the bank as I ate breakfast over looking the lake. One of the new carp chaps who was fishing round the bank had left and having seen so much activity in his swim the night prior it seemed the perfect spot. The camp packed away I settled down in the dappled shade under the trees to fish off my barrow with just the bare essentials not packed up

As I wasn't fishing at range a small tree in the swim afforded me the rare opportunity of being able to see right into my swim went the sun was at the right angle. It was surprising to see that although my buzzers were quiet for the most part fish were actually regularly moving in and around my swim. I saw both bream and tench from my vantage point as they cruised past. But not one even stooped so much as a millimetre to investigate my free baits. Seeing those fish moving around around in the clear water served to confirm that fish in Coombe rarely feed out of the dusk till dawn period of the day.

My last afternoon on the lake was spent sitting on my unhooking mat leaning against a tree lost in the pages of a book, which truth be told is a much better way to spend a sunny afternoon rather than being at work. Even as I pondered the lack of action in the final twenty four hours I felt no ill feelings in relation to spending so much time by the lake as I had learnt so much about what, when and where. And now I was back involved with the lake I knew it would be that long until I was back to take full advantage of my new found knowledge.

Fish eye #1 Roach

A short while ago I was showing my good friend Rob some pictures using a memory stick in combination with our flat screen TV in the lounge. Whilst doing so I came across a picture of a tench eye we took a few years ago. I think it would be truthful that even though it was a little out of focus seeing this close up shot three feet wide really took us both back. The subtleties I could see in that close up were stunning and really made me realise that quite often we hold these amazingly beautiful things in our hands and don't take or have time to look closely enough to appreciated them. It instantly inclined me to think about taking some more of these shots and with a little encouragement form Rob I have decided to try and capture more of these images as I fish through the year and to post them onto this blog as a as a side project under the title of Fish eye, They won't appear with any regularity knowing me, so this way should anyone want to see them they can track them down by title without having to read any other blogs separating them. I don't really want to detract from any of the pictures I post by blabbering on, so the most I will write is the sort of location or conditions the fish came from and their age or size, as I think these points are important and may go some way to helping show the differences in the same species from different environments. 

10oz roach from a clear farm pond caught in winter.

Effective vulgarity wins over artistic romance for me.

I suppose that right now I should be regaling a tale extolling the virtues of fishing a pristine chalk stream using a beautifully crafted centrepin reel and of how the line flows from the spool like silk, before my vintage style hand made topper float is pulled from sight by a lady of the stream. But I can't! I simply can't, as the truth is I tried to fulfill this romantic notion that I had created in my head and failed dismally. It wasn't that I didn't try and it wasn't that the fish weren't there, because they were. It is just a simple case of I am no trotter! and the worst of it is that I have the technique and the skills to send a float sailing down stream smooth as I like.The bare fact is that after very little trying on my part and only a few finger sized fish, I discarded the artistic and embraced the vulgar. Within an hour of arriving on the river Itchen my float rod was set aside and a forty two gram block end feeder crashed into these hallowed waters shattering the tranquility forever.

By playing to my strengths and fishing a way I felt more comfortable I turned what I felt was going to be a bad morning on its head instantly. I picked a swim no angler trotting in their right mind would fish, loaded an almost gross feeder full of wriggling goodness and let rip. Straight away dividends was paid; every cast the tip rattled round attached to one of the hordes of grayling nailed to the opposite bank.

I think to say the water was shallow and clear was an understatement. As I was fishing a deeper gully on the exit of a bend far across the river, I had a huge shallow mound no more than a foot deep which extended so far from the bank that I reckon not many anglers would have bothered with this one. But temptingly all across the shallows if you looked hard enough you could see small to medium sized grayling holding in indents and behind patches of weed.

I  was happily enjoying regular sport from grayling, but  I knew it was only a matter of time before another interloper shoved in, so I wasn't disappointed when I struck and something silver shot from the depths like a cruise missile. Every time I see this happen I am always amazed. Trout anglers pay a fortune and invest huge amounts of time to chase sea trout on rivers throughout Wales and the South, often failing to catch one for huge amounts of time, and here I am lobbing maggots out wholesale and the damn things can't get enough. Six of these deranged fish took my baits in the first swim alone and everyone made such a fuss it was unreal.

"The worst day on the Itchen is like the day of a lifetime on any other river" someone said to me the other night regarding this river and he is exactly right. This was exactly why we upped sticks and left an area that was producing constant bites and insane amounts of fish. We hadn't travelled all this way to just catch loads of average sized grayling and a few sea trout. We wanted to catch something special and with the Itchen setting such a high bar for what is special, it was a case of getting onto the area that is capable of producing such a fish.

With that in mind we dropped down to fish the gin clear run off the weir pool. I have fished this area a few times before and have only ever caught trout and grayling, but I do know from other sources that it contains some very special fish. Though what I already knew hardly prepared me for what I saw. At the tail of the run where the bottom shallowed towards the surface, a shoal of two to three pound chub hung in the flow. Two to three pound chub aren't that special you will think, and you're right, but they provided a handy point of reference against which to size the other inhabitants of this area.  One of those monster chub looked to be at least twice as big as the little two-pounder, so was maybe five to six pounds. The other one was markedly bigger than the other! So conservatively could have been seven plus even in late summer condition and it wasn't even the chub which were that shocking, it was the roach.

Three roach all over two pounds repeatedly circled along a very specific route, stopping behind various clumps of weed to rest intermittently. At first I thought they were immature bream like the ones that were hanging out in a slack upstream but soon enough their red fins became obvious and they morphed into roach. It was Andy that bagged this swim and as we watched the roach and chub, two huge koi carp rose from the weeds to make our eyes bulge even more. Not wanting to possibly detract from what Andy hoped to do I headed off above the weir to fish what I consider to be both the best and worse swim on the entire fishery.

The M27 swim is where the oasis-like feel of the Itchen and reality collide. It is by my own admission the noisiest swim I have fished ever. The east bound carriageway thunders constantly over the river on the fish-able side and between the sounds of wailing engines and truck sidings flapping in the wind, you can barely hear yourself think. Add to that the fact that every truck that passes by quite literally shakes the ground for hundreds of feet and you have a very strange experience involving a beautifully river and the UK transport network.

Though as bad a place as it is, there is no doubt that it is a fish magnet. My theory is that the constant thunder of traffic, shelter of concrete and deep run all serve to make a very safe haven for resting salmon and shoals of everything alike. Once ensconced the feeder was dutifully filled and swung into the flow. The first fish to oblige were just mediocre grayling, but soon enough the tip hoofed round and a real dirty fighter was on the line.

This very long and lean chub did everything it could to get into every weed bed in the entire swim but patience wore it down and eventually it went into the net, where it did the oddest vibrating I have ever seen from a chub. That fish released upstream I again cast to the exact same spot and this time I never got the rods on the rest. If the bite was savage and sharp the fight was unbelievable. I at first thought I'd hooked another salmon but an amazing cartwheel jump revealed a big brown trout was the culprit.

After the trout the swim seemed to die a death, though this did coincide with the sun being at its highest. It was around then that I got the call from Andy who had been persevering with those infuriating chub and roach. He had on the float hooked and lost the biggest of all the chub in the weir run off. I know the feeling he just gone through only too well. You hook a huge fish in very pacey flow and the damn thing just holds flank on, with the whole pressure of the river on it before flicking its tail and sticking far too much strain on your very light outfit.

Not long after this I too dropped down to the weir and fished above him. Though honestly I should have known better with all the bream around in the swim. From the moment my rig went in those dammed bream knew the food was around. Their whole demeanor changed and I watched time and time again as they circled round my bait picking up freebies. It was not them that I wanted but the single large roach that had broken away from its companions and joined up with the bream. But that was never going to happen! The moment I looked away the rod was nearly wrenched into the river by a rather dozy bream. It was however very interesting to see what happened when the hooked fish panicked. The shoal broke up flying in all directions, only to reform and wait off down stream the roach included. By the time I had unhooked the bronze bugger and released it away from the swim, the damn things were back on the spot, head-down like nothing had happened.

By late afternoon I was done trying to avoid the bream whilst picking out a single roach and was a bit lost for what to do. I was tempted to fish the barbel swim but not having any gear suitable I gave it a miss. With only an hour or so left I decided to just return to the motorway swim and sit it out for another chub or a big roach on the bread feeder. Putting my bank sticks back in the previous holes I settled into the worn swim thinking it would just be a case of whiling away my last hour watching a motionless tip in a used up swim.

First cast the feeder touched down on hard bottom and I put the rod down. Moments later the tip slowly bent round as if a huge clump of loose weed had snagged on my line. Anyone who has ever fished a chalk stream will be familiar with the massive chunks of weed which randomly come down like icebergs through the day and dislodge your rigs constantly. Picking up the rod I gently began to haul back my rig only to find the weed hugging the bottom and moving up stream some serious intent. It was a little surprising that my weed clump had suddenly turned into a mystery fish. Having seen carp in this swim before and from it's laborious fight, I suspected I was about to get turned around and spanked when a carp woke up, but no it just plodded around until it saw a weed bed, where it dived straight towards. Even more surprising was the fact that could stop it and my five pound line held. Maybe it wasn't a carp after all. With no salmonid acrobatics and it being far too big for a roach, identification was simple. It was a chub and a good one at that judging from its length when it rolled on the surface. With nothing but clear water between me and it the result was a forgone conclusion. With another decent chub in my net is was made up but when I went to lift it over the reeds the net pole began bending worryingly and I soon found out why...

This chub was in a different league to the first. It was around the same length but with a head bigger than my fist, shoulders to match and it seemed twice as thick as the other one. I think the term I used to Andy when I gave him a call to come help photograph it was 'Goliath'. Seeing the size of it I was shocked to find it only weighed 5.7lb but like all the fish we had caught it was very lean and still in summer condition. 

From examining the fish we both agreed where it was lacking body mass was in its stomach. This one like the other had a lot of feeding to do before winter, which makes sense as for months now it had only been non nutritional fly anglers on the beat. Given the overall size of this chub I think realistically that it could easily pack on a pound to a pound and half before Christmas. Which could make its top end weight close if not seven pounds.

The pictures we took didn't really do the fish justice but that was down the fishes poor behaviour. I'd rested it for a good while before the photos as it seemed very dazed and that consideration came back to haunt me as you can see from my top behind the fish.

The chub was a fine way to end an already productive trip back to the Itchen, but I wont deny that the sight of those giant chalk stream roach is burnt into my mind and I still can't believe that neither of us came remotely close to hooking one. It is as I said before, the Itchen like many Southern chalk streams, set such high bars for what is a good fish that a fish of a lifetime back home is just an average fish on these wondrous rivers.

The Lake #22 The queen is gone! Long live the kings.

Hanging fearlessly mid-water in the shadow of the old log she bristled in a state of constant readiness for the attack. For years now she had been the number one, the apex predator of the confluence pool and the arrival of the log in the very centre had only cemented her position further. Some time during winter just passed it had been lifted from its resting place high up the brook by the swollen waters and drifted slowly down to the pool. After a few days churning aimlessly round in the eddy, the water level fell as the rains abated and the log had grounded on the silty bar just off the main flow. Though its resting place was pure chance, the log was perfectly positioned for the pike and her brethren to use as an ambush point, from which they attacked the flashing silver shoals of prey that darted back and forth constantly.

Much like the log, she and hundreds of other microscopic pike had found their way down the brook into the pool. As per normal they had been gorging the tiny daphnia close to the surface to feed their constant hunger. In doing so they had inadvertently strayed too close to an invisible force which had sucked them against their will down into the brook. Many died in the initial  fall, others were taken from above by stabbing birds that appeared from nowhere, but those who survived made their way into the pool where other predators waited.

The years passed and as they did perch, kingfishers and cannibalism all took their toll on the little pike. But she soon had begun to exceed her brothers and sisters in size and now she too had become quite partial to eating her kin. Now after many turns of the seasons only three of the originals remained, her and her two smaller brothers. The smallest of their trio had moved off over the shallow water for easy pickings in the small pool by the wall. She though was too big to dare  try the journey. Only three nights past she attempted to get over shallows only to get stuck in a panic in the dark. But that was all forgotten now as some other disturbance had focused her and her scared brothers attentions on the pool in front.

Not long after dawn, out of the blue a bounty of tiny red grubs had fallen on the water. The silver roach and golden rudd were quick to harvest this bounty and in no time at all they were in a frenzy. With the nights growing cold their hunger had increased and such a wondrous source of food could not be ignored if they wanted to survive the winter, so they fed with unabated gusto. It was that activity that raised the attentions of the pike, but it was the vibrations of panic that made them strike. It was a thrashing perch that brought the little male out into the open, but it was the second one he sensed that he struck moments later. For a small fish it resisted more than normal when bitten but a few savage thrashes and it was his. It was her turn now! The small male had circled round to swallow his meal under the log and so any panicked fish were hers and hers alone. It took a while for it to happen again and when it did the panic was too far off for her to strike. Then moments later a sulking perch skulked back into the deep water all spines flared indigent at its ordeal. Before she could chase the perch a silver mass of terror flashed above. Without thinking she struck, grasping the fish side-on before turning back to the bottom. She too felt the resistance stopping her from swimming away but a surge of power brought a sudden end to it.

As she went around the log swallowing her meal she passed the two carp and their tench companion mooning in the roots of the undercut bank. Neither paid the other much heed as size had removed fear from all parties. The panic continued on and off but it wasn't until the last meals had stopped wriggling in their stomachs that the pair re-set into attack positions  Again the small gung-ho male attacked first, missing his target as he swirled high in the water. Then something fluttered down through the water not far in front of her. It didn't flash and it wasn't panicked, but its wriggling attracted her and its size decided it. It had been a long time since she had eaten worms, but it was food and she wasn't about to pass up a free meal of this size. Unlike the speedy thrashing fish, the worm would not make a hasty escape so calmly she drifted forward stopping only inches away. Focusing on the gently writhing worm she manoeuvred herself into position before calmly opening her mouth enough to suck in the worm. As she turned off slowly back towards the log she felt a stabbing jolt in the side of her mouth and sudden resistance prevented her from moving. Unaware of any real danger she didn't panic and just hung motionless. Slowly she began moving backwards, then as the surface neared she bolted off towards safety  Again and again she made a bid for the log but time and time again something prevented her escaping  Now her panic rose as she did in the water and her surges to escape became more frantic, until finally her energy gave out and the force pulled her towards the shallows grew.

The one last ditch attempt to escape at the sight of the strange foreign object she was drawn towards came to nothing. She felt something rise around her before the normal comforting water dispersed under her and she found herself pulled into a cold alien world. Moments later she felt herself laid down onto something soft. It was then that the predator appeared in her eye line. Survival took over and she thrashed violently but this just drew the assailant onto her where it grabbed her by her chin. With her mouth forced open she felt the pain in the side of her mouth twist then fade, then again she was laid on her side as the predator loomed over her for a while. Suddenly the alien thing engulfed her again and she felt herself moving. Light and dark was all she saw for a while then it just became light, bright light that was blinding  Then water rose around her and she could again breathe. Confused but happy that she was back in her world, she rested a moment before drifting slowly away. But this wasn't the pool, it wasn't even her world this was bigger, a million times bigger. Caution took over and she moved slowly to the safety of some weed to figure out this strange new place.

"I've got you this time!!!"

The jack pike had been plaguing me all morning ever since I had first deposited those first hand fulls of maggots to inspire the fish to feed. I had lost a few fish already to the pike and they had chased many more. I'd had to tie on new hooks when other had been severed from my line my the razor sharp teeth of the jacks. But finally one had actually taken my worm and it seemed like I had a clean and honest hook hold on one so maybe my light line would hold just enough for me to land it.

The snag was the problem. It had appeared after the winter floods and had annoyingly got stuck just about in the centre of the pool, essentially cutting the pool in half. I knew the tiny tench I sought to transfer back up to the lake liked to hang out along the under cut bank like there big relation that I had seen hanging around with the carp. But with the snag now in between me and them, I could not risk casting beyond it as I knew fish would get tangled under it. So I had resigned myself to fishing the main part of the pool in front of the snag in the hope that I could draw the tench up to me instead.

Saying that, the snag wasn't the only problem. The water level was low and it had concentrated all the fish into a very confined area, pike included, and they were having a field day in the shallow water. Although we have had rain here and there, it would seem that not enough water had fallen this summer to keep the lake topped up enough to keep the spillway flowing and this was reflected in the brooks. The brook to my right was reduced to only two foot wide strip that hugged the bank.

And the brook that entered the pool opposite me through the wood with its dry pebbles had seemingly become subterranean.

Even with the low water level the fish were in the mood to feed as the nights had grown a little colder with the on set of autumn, and even with the few fish and hooks lost to the pike I had already landed a slew of nice perch up to a pound and half.

But now I was hooked into something much bigger after my rod tip had pulled slowly round with intent. My light feeder rod bent double as it seemed that my hook had found safe purchase after one of the pike had taken my worm. The three pound line was holding as my lightly set clutch allowed enough leeway for the little pike to run but not snap me up. Now it was a case of just going softly until it was tired enough to land. I could see it hanging in the clear water before it surged off towards the snag yet again but this time it gave up half way there and it looked like the fight was soon to be over. On seeing the net in the water it did that classic one last surge to escape the net that pike always seem to do, but that came to no avail.

In the net and as I rested it onto the mat the fish was calm as you like. But when I bent over it all hell broke loose like I was about to eat it. So I quickly chinned the thrashing little pike opening its mouth to see where my lucky strike had set the hook. Just as I thought the barbless hook had caught home just in the scissor,s and upon trying to dislodge it with my forceps I found there was no way that one was coming out in the fight. A quick wiggle and it was out and the fish was unhooked.

I had to get a picture of this immaculate little pike and as I did I dawned on my that maybe this one might be getting a little to big for the confluence pool. I had in the past put any smaller ones back into the pool but this one was way bigger than those. The bailiff had told me before that any bigger fish could go back up to the lake from where they originated and this one would make a fine addition to the pike populations of the giant pool above.

It's only a short journey up the ancient man made bank up to the lake so I put her back into my net and scarpered back up the bank to the concrete outlet. After resting her in the water she soon righted herself and hung in my net. I knew it would be a bit of a new world for her in the massive lake, but as she slowly swam down into the weed to rest before going off to explore the place of her birth, I hoped she would have the opportunity to breed and start the whole cycle again.

Sitting on the point that dominates the pool I poured another cup of tea and watched the water settle. Already I could see one of the other small pike attacking the roach in the clouded water I'd stirred up. As I sipped the hot brew from my old tin mug I wondered whether now she was gone maybe one of the other two smaller pike I had seen this morning might rise up to become the king of the pool, now that the queen was gone.